The inventive concepts generally relate to non-volatile memory devices and systems, and more particularly, to the generation of various voltages utilized in non-volatile memory devices and systems.
Semiconductor memory devices are generally classified as either volatile semiconductor memory devices or non-volatile memory devices. Volatile semiconductor memory devices lose stored data in the event of an interruption in power supply, whereas non-volatile memory device retain stored data in the event of an interruption in power supply.
Examples of non-volatile semiconductor memory devices include mask read-only memories (MROM), programmable read-only memories (PROM), erasable programmable read only memories (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read only memories (EEPROM), and so on.
Developed from EEPROM technology, the NAND flash memory device has become widely adopted for non-volatile mass data storage applications. For example, NAND flash memory devices are commonly employed to store audio, image and/or video data in a myriad of different types of host devices, such as computers, mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), a digital cameras, camcorders, voice recorders, MP3 players, handheld personal computers (PCs), game consoles, facsimile machines, scanners, printers and so on.
Depending on the number of bits stored per memory cell, non-volatile memory devices, such as NAND flash memory devices, are generally classified as either single level cell (SLC) devices or multi-level cells (MLC) devices. SLC devices store a single bit of data in each non-volatile memory cell, whereas MLC devices store 2 or more bits of data in each non-volatile memory cell.
There is a continual demand in the industry to increase the integration density of semiconductor devices, particularly mass storage devices such as NAND flash memory device. As such, for example, MLC devices are becoming more commonplace in the market. However, efforts to increase device integration are attended by a number of significant design challenges, including minimizing power consumption and maintaining operational stability.